Fried Green Tomatoes - Not at the Whistle Stop Cafe

I made fried green tomatoes tonight to go with my ribs. They are another childhood favorite that my Grandmother usually made along with the Sunday fried chicken. I was eating them way before that movie with the gorgeous Mary Louise Parker. (Two side notes…If you have never watched it…check out Weed’s with MLP on Showtime. EXCELENT show! Also my Grandmother was Mary Louise. Random thoughts from the mind of J.J.) They are so simple, yet so tasty. For a lot of people they are an acquired taste. I believe them to be a Midwest/Southern dish.



J.J./Grandma’s Fried Green Tomatoes



• Green tomatoes – these are sometimes hard to acquire unless you have your own garden or a friend with a garden. I know a few times I have asked at the grocery store if they have green tomatoes and have been looked at like I am crazy.


• Buttermilk – I like to soak the tomatoes in buttermilk like my Grandma did so the coating will stick to them. If you don’t have buttermilk readily available (like I didn’t tonight) use and egg and about a cup of milk whisked together. Also season the milk with some pepper and salt. I don’t measure things very well when I cook so my guess would be about a ¼ teaspoon of each.


• Flour – I season that with more pepper and season salt. I use LAWRY'S® Seasoned Salt with 25% less sodium.


• Oil – I use olive, canola, or a blend of the two. Grandma used Crisco…That had to go out the window with the full sodium season salt.



Get your oil in the pan getting hot as you prep your ingredients…I heat it on medium as I get everything together. If I know for sure I am making them I slice the green tomatoes and start soaking them earlier in the day. I season my flour and start coating. Make sure you shake the extra flour from the tomatoes and place them in the skillet. I would say it is about a minute to a minute and a half per side…till they are brown, crispy, and the tomatoes are just tender. I always taste the first one for salt level and salt them to taste while they are still warm and draining on paper towels.


Fried green tomatoes are a comfort food for me. They are also good with milk gravy.


What is milk gravy you may ask? Here is the description from Wikipedia:

 

White gravy (sawmill gravy in Southern U.S. cuisine) is the gravy typically used in biscuits and gravy and chicken-fried steak. It is essentially a béchamel sauce, with the roux being made of meat drippings and flour. Milk or cream is added and thickened by the roux; once prepared, black pepper and bits of mild sausage or chicken liver are sometimes added. Besides white and sawmill gravy, common names include country gravy, milk gravy, and sausage gravy.

One day I will go further into the gravy dimension. That is an entry in itself.

The finished product.